Bad News from the Thon
I heard over the weekend that the pulp mill in my home town – Marathon, Ontario – will be shutting down indefinitely, due to the worldwide financial meltdown, and depressed pulp prices.
The mill was built in 1945 or so, on what is perhaps the best deep-water harbour on Lake Superior between Thunder Bay and Sault Ste. Marie.
My Dad worked there for 38 years, and I spent five years there during the summers while attending university – it basically paid for my education, and then some.
Although the town currently hosts a second resource industry – the gold mines at Hemlo – and there are promising resource discoveries in the area, this is a hard blow for the town. The employees had been doing the right thing (taking a significant pay cut late in 2008).
My Mom still lives there, as do my Aunt and Uncle (all retired). But my cousin still works there, and many of the folks I went to high school with will be in a tough position – late forties, looking for work in a town where there will be none.